October 30, 2008 12:21 pm

This is courtesy of a friend of mine who used to work the Sonics game nights:

The Washington Redskins are an accurate barometer for presidential elections. According to Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau, who coined the term “Redskins Rule” in 2000, the following has held true for the past 17 presidential elections: If the Redskins win their last home game prior to Election Day, the party that won the popular vote in the previous election wins the White House; if the Redskins lose, the party that lost the popular vote in the previous election wins.

In this Monday’s case, a Steelers win would forecast an Obama victory; a Redskins win would indicate a McCain win.

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Gregg Bell joined The News Tribune in July 2014. Bell had been the director of writing for the University of Washington's athletic department for four years. He was the senior national sports writer in Seattle for The Associated Press from 2005-10, covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season and beyond. He's also been The Sacramento Bee's beat writer on the Oakland Athletics and Raiders. The native of Steubenville, Ohio, is a 1993 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and a 2000 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

“Yep, in 2004 the Redskins lost to the Packers on Oct. 31, but G.W. Bush won the election. Still, 15 in a row is a pretty good run.”

emitch, re-read the original post again. “If the Redskins lose, the party that lost the popular vote in the previous election wins.” The GOP won the election but lost the popular vote in 2000. The Redskins lost in 2004, and the party that lost the popular vote in the previous election won in 2004. So the streak isn’t over yet.

What bunch of turncoats! Do you remember how Joey Porter talked about how great the Stealers were? Do you remember Jerome Bettis’ arrogant exit from football? Do you remember what it was like to see the refs take away a 1st goal when a touchdown would have meant the lead?

And now you are rooting for the Stealers?!?!?!

Root for Obama and against the Stealers!!!!!! Root for a coincidence to break rather than for those sack of black and gold theives!

Lets take some of those season tickets from long time diehards and distribute them to some fans who are to cheap and/or lazy to get heir own!! C’mon lets spread the wealth!! And if you’ve never seen a game at quest we’ll throw in a T-shirt and a Hotdog!! Season tickets must be increased to pay for the dogs though!!!!! GO SKINS!!! GO McCain!!!!

I believe the original tale was that a Redskins win foretold that the incumbent party would win the election, and vice versa. The fact that the Redskins lost in 2004 but the incumbent won upset the trend. But the peculiarity of the 2000 election was that Bush was not the winner of the popular vote (as we all know). So the allegory was changed to the winner of the previous popular vote rather than the winner of the election. It is sort of contrived at this point since Bush winning in 2004 upset the karma…in more ways than one.

Either way, this race is over. And the Redskins are primed for a big loss. This is a team that has demonstrated nearly historic levels of inconsistency the last ten years. Whenever they are on the verge of being great they find ways to lose. Coming off an easy stretch in their schedule they are facing a very tough opponent. And FedEx is not exactly much of a home field advantage. Steelers will probably win this game since the Redskins are a team lacking in long term confidence. They find ways to lose big games.

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